A&M's soft non-league schedule just what SEC wants to avoid

Updated 11:26 pm, Thursday, May 30, 2013

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The schedule lines up well this year for Johnny Manziel (2) and the Aggies, who face Alabama at home and have four relatively easy non-conference games - something SEC commissioner Mike Slive wants schools to avoid. less

The schedule lines up well this year for Johnny Manziel (2) and the Aggies, who face Alabama at home and have four relatively easy non-conference games - something SEC commissioner Mike Slive wants schools to ... more

Photo: Dave Martin, STF

A&M's soft non-league schedule just what SEC wants to avoid

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DESTIN, Fla. - Texas A&M's path to the national title game might never be more wide than this season, when Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel and the Aggies play host to two-time defending national champion Alabama and later visit LSU after the typically powerful Tigers lost a slew of underclassmen to the pros.

The Aggies' advantageous schedule - or at least as advantageous as it's going to get in the rugged SEC West - also includes four non-conference contests that have left some of their league foes chuckling, perhaps in envy.

"This is the schedule that we've had, and it's basically based on the Big 12 schedule," A&M athletic director Eric Hyman said Thursday at the SEC spring meetings, which wrap up Friday. "During a transition like this (from the Big 12 to the SEC), it's just been a little more difficult trying to schedule. Hopefully, in time, it will straighten itself out."

Four likely wins

The Aggies open with Rice on Aug. 31 at Kyle Field, follow with Sam Houston State of the FCS the next weekend, and also play SMU and UTEP to round out their relaxed non-conference run. On the same day A&M plays host to Rice, the Crimson Tide face Virginia Tech and LSU faces TCU.

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Without naming names, SEC commissioner Mike Slive said this week programs must bolster their non-conference slates as the SEC sticks with an eight-game league schedule - at least for the time being.

"I don't want us playing four games that mean less," Slive said. "I made that very clear."

Especially with the four-team College Football Playoff set to start in 2014, when a to-be-determined committee will consider strength of schedule as part of the equation. Hyman, hired less than a year ago by A&M from fellow SEC opponent South Carolina, said Thursday he agrees with Slive, and it's his intent to bolster the Aggies' non-conference schedule in coming years.

"You've got to have balance," Hyman said of his philosophy for an ideal non-conference schedule.

Meaning a couple of likely wins, including an FCS opponent, followed by a "lower-level BCS game, and then you have a game from a national standpoint," Hyman said.

The Aggies have no such "national" game this season, but four years ago then-athletic director Bill Byrne announced A&M was adding contests against powerhouses Southern Cal (in 2015 and '16) and Oregon (2018 and '19).

Those games are no longer part of A&M's plans, Hyman said, because "having switched from the Big 12 to the SEC, we've had to scrub our whole schedule - throw it almost out. Going forward, we've had conversations with people, but we really can't be contractually (obligated) until the conference says you've got the green light."

Slive said this week, moving forward, he intends for SEC schools to first receive their league game dates and then schedule non-conference contests around those.

"When we know what we've got and we know where the holes are and what we have to work with," Hyman said in regard to when scheduling can be tackled.

As for any future marquee non-conference opponents for A&M?

"We've had some general conversations with some people, and in time those conversations will spring into something more concrete," Hyman said.

Playing in Texas a lure

When the time arrives, A&M won't have any problem finding solid non-conference foes, he added.

"What is the advantage we have? A lot of people want to come to Texas and recruit Texas," Hyman said of the state's strength in high school football. "They want to get that exposure in Texas. The Big Ten, the Pac 12 … we have something they would like."